The Catholic Church’s opposition to abortion, and its endorsement of the pro-marriage resolution in California, Proposition 8, has triggered an avalanche of criticism, much of it vitriolic. Here is a sampling:

· The National Catholic Reporter blasts all the bishops—“Not one among the bishops has had the courage”—to take on pro-life Catholics who have allegedly “distorted” the abortion issue· Rabbi Brad Hirschfield criticizes Cardinal Egan for being anti-abortion, saying, “We need to stop litmus testing each other over single issues” like abortion. “We”?· Catholics for Choice says that pro-abortion Catholics “are in good company, and in good conscience” for rejecting the Church’s teaching on this subject· Rev. Daniel Kanter, a Unitarian, says the Catholic Church “employs a measure of fear” to get Catholics to oppose abortion· Rev. Jonathan Tran, a Baptist, opines, “If the Church doesn’t tell us what to do with our ballots…and genitalia, who will?” “Us”?· Professor Frank K. Flinn says the Catholic Church has not always been opposed to abortion, implying that the Catholic Catechism, the bishops and the pope are all wrong · Rev. Geoffrey Farrow, a gay priest, says the Catholic Church’s opposition to gay marriage represents a “hurtful” theology· Atheos, a musician, says Proposition 8 “is nothing but Bigotry—good ol’ Christian bigotry”· Los Angeles Times writer Steve Lopez says that “Speaking up for the dignity of gay people must be a greater sin than being accused of molesting minors”

Catholic League president Bill Donohue responds as follows:

“Even worse are American Atheists, Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the Freedom from Religion Foundation. All accuse the Catholic Church of abusing its power by favoring Proposition 8, yet none says anything about the more than 100 houses of worship and religious organizations which oppose it. Their hypocrisy is appalling.”

One day, please God, when the stranglehold on public opinion in the United States has been released by the extremists for whom abortion is the center of their political and moral life, our nation will, in my judgment, look back on what we have been doing to innocent human beings within their mothers as a crime no less heinous than what was approved by the Supreme Court in the “Dred Scott Case” in the 19th century, and no less heinous than what was perpetrated by Hitler and Stalin in the 20th. There is nothing at all complicated about the utter wrongness of abortion, and making it all seem complicated mitigates that wrongness not at all. On the contrary, it intensifies it.

Do me a favor. Look at the photograph again. Look and decide with honesty and decency what the Lord expects of you and me as the horror of “legalized” abortion continues to erode the honor of our nation. Look, and do not absolve yourself if you refuse to act.

KANSAS CITY, Missouri, OCT. 28, 2008 (Zenit.org).- A U.S. bishop says people of good will should question a candidate's determination to reduce abortions when he also promises to immediately sign upon taking office the Freedom of Choice Act.

Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City-St. Joseph said this in a statement last week that aimed to educate voters about a bill the next U.S. president might have the chance to sign into law or veto.

The bishop explained: "The Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), was first introduced in November of 1989. […] The more recent wording of FOCA, introduced last year, is as follows: A government may not: (1) deny or interfere with a woman's right to choose -- (A) to bear a child; (B) to terminate a pregnancy prior to viability; or (C) to terminate a pregnancy after viability where termination is necessary to protect the life or health of the woman; or (2) discriminate against the exercise of the rights set forth in paragraph (1) in the regulation or provision of benefits, facilities, services, or information."

Bishop Finn explained that this act applies to "every federal, state, and local statute, ordinance, regulation, administrative order, decision, penalty, practice, or other action enacted, adopted, or implemented before or after the date of enactment of this act."

It would thus "make null and void every current restriction on abortion in all jurisdictions," he said.

Citing an article from the Family Research Council, the bishop noted that among the laws FOCA would automatically overturn are 44 states' laws concerning parental involvement; 40 states' laws on restricting later-term abortions; and 46 states' conscience protection laws for individual health care providers; as well as 38 states' bans on partial-birth abortions.

Backward

Bishop Finn then mentioned a group "calling itself Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, which says that electing candidates who have permissive or clearly pro-choice stances in support of abortion, but are determined to provide more assistance to poor and vulnerable women and families, would actually help to reduce abortions in the United States."

"This group," he said, "I believe has its priorities backward."

"It seems unlikely," Bishop Finn contended, "that candidates advocating full access to abortion -- which attacks the most vulnerable poor, the unborn -- will at the same time have a consistent or principle-based plan for helping other poor people. […] When a candidate pledges to provide 'comprehensive sex education' to school children and promises to promote -- or to 'sign immediately upon taking office' -- the Freedom of Choice Act, Catholics and all people of good will have cause to question the sincerity of the candidate's determination to reduce abortions."

Referring to a pastoral letter he wrote with Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, Kansas, Bishop Finn affirmed: "[W]e can never vote for a candidate because of his permissive stand on abortion. At the same time, if we are inclined to vote for someone despite their pro-abortion stance, it seems we are morally obliged to establish a proportionate reason sufficient to justify the destruction of 45 million human persons through abortion.

"If we learn that our 'candidate of choice' further pledges -- through an instrument such as FOCA -- to eliminate all existing limitations against abortion, it is that much more doubtful whether voting for him or her can ever be morally justified under any circumstance."

He said, “I know that my church has wrestled with this for 2,000 years,” and claimed repeatedly that the Church has a nuanced view of the subject that leaves a great deal of room for uncertainty and debate.

This is simply incorrect. The teaching of the Church is clear and not open to debate. Abortion is a grave sin because it is the wrongful taking of an innocent human life. The Church received the tradition opposing abortion from Judaism. In the Greco-Roman world, early Christians were identifiable by their rejection of the common practices of abortion and infanticide.

The Didache, probably the earliest Christian writing apart from the New Testament, explicitly condemns abortion without exceptions. It tells us there is a “way of life” and a “way of death” and abortion is a part of the way of death. This has been the consistent teaching of the Church ever since.

It was also the position of Protestant reformers without exception. It was the teaching of Pope John XXIII as well as Pope John Paul II. It is the teaching of Pope Benedict XVI and the bishops of the Church, including me as shepherd of this diocese.

Some ancient and medieval theologians did see a difference between early abortions and ones that occurred later in term because with the limited medical knowledge of the time they did not know then what we scientifically know now: that a fetus is a living human being from conception.

WASHINGTON, D.C., OCT. 24, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Both opposing evil and doing good are moral requirements in the abortion issue, and the "Catholic approach" does not allow for choosing just one or the other, clarified two U.S. bishops' officials.

Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia and Bishop William Murphy of Rockville Centre, New York, respectively the chair of the episcopal conference's Committee on Pro-Life Activities and the chair of the Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, clarified Church teaching on fighting abortion in a Tuesday statement.

"Unfortunately, there seem to be efforts and voter education materials designed to persuade Catholics that they need only choose one approach: either opposing evil or doing good. This is not an authentically Catholic approach," the prelates affirmed.

They clarified: "Some argue that we should not focus on policies that provide help for pregnant women, but just focus on the essential task of establishing legal protections for children in the womb. Others argue that providing life affirming support for pregnant women should be our only focus and this should take the place of efforts to establish legal protections for unborn children. We want to be clear that neither argument is consistent with Catholic teaching. Our faith requires us to oppose abortion on demand and to provide help to mothers facing challenging pregnancies."

Fighting Roe vs. Wade

Cardinal Rigali and Bishop Murphy noted that some have recently encouraged the Church to abandon efforts to overturn the 1973 decision legalizing abortion.

"They say we should accept Roe as a permanent fixture of constitutional law, stop trying to restore recognition for the unborn child’s human rights, and confine our public advocacy to efforts to 'reduce abortions' through improved economic and social support for women and families," the bishops recounted.

And though the Catholic community is "second to no one in providing and advocating for support for women and families facing problems during pregnancy," these efforts "are not an adequate or complete response to the injustice of Roe v. Wade for several important reasons," Cardinal Rigali and Bishop Murphy wrote.

They explained: "First, the Court’s decision in Roe denied an entire class of innocent human beings the most fundamental human right, the right to life. In fact, the act of killing these fellow human beings was transformed from a crime into a 'right,' turning the structure of human rights on its head. […]

"Second, the many challenges to the Court’s error since 1973 have borne fruit, leading to significant modifications of Roe. […]

"Third, Roe itself enormously increased the annual number of abortions in our society. The law is a teacher, and Roe taught many women, physicians and others that abortion is an acceptable answer to a wide range of problems. By the same token, even the limited pro-life laws allowed by the Court since Roe have been shown to reduce abortions substantially, leading to a steady decline in the abortion rate since 1980."

The bishops again reiterated that passage of a current proposal in Congress, the "Freedom of Choice Act" could cause the loss of all this progress.

Double approach

"Providing support for pregnant women so they choose to have their babies is a necessary but not sufficient response to abortion," the prelates repeated. "Similarly, reversal of Roe is a necessary but not sufficient condition for restoring an order of justice in our society’s treatment of defenseless human life. This act by itself would not automatically grant legal protection to the unborn.

"It would remove an enormous obstacle to such protection, so the people of the United States and their elected representatives in every state could engage in a genuine discussion of how to save unborn children and their mothers from the tragedy of abortion.

"Both approaches to opposing abortion are essential. By protecting the child’s life to the maximum degree possible, improving life-affirming support for pregnant women, and changing the attitudes and prejudices imposed on many women to make them see abortion as an acceptable or necessary solution, we will truly help build a culture of life."

October 23, 2008

As people who read LifeNet are aware, Barack Obama in the Illinois State Senate voted against a bill identical to a federal bill that passed 98-0 in the U.S. Senate to require medical care for infants born after an attempted abortion. Senator Barbara Boxer, leader of the "pro-choice" brigade in the Senate said, "Of course we should treat a baby born after an abortion."

It takes five minutes to watch the video and under five minutes to read George's article.

Here's Princeton Professor Robert George on the fanaticism of Obama's pro-abortion, "Brave New World" position. We have excerpted about half the article.

Just for the sake of argument, though, let us assume that there could be a morally meaningful distinction between being "pro-abortion" and being "pro-choice." Who would qualify for the latter description? Barack Obama certainly would not. For, unlike his running mate Joe Biden, Obama does not think that abortion is a purely private choice that public authority should refrain from getting involved in. Now, Senator Biden is hardly pro-life. He believes that the killing of the unborn should be legally permitted and relatively unencumbered. But unlike Obama, at least Biden has sometimes opposed using taxpayer dollars to fund abortion, thereby leaving Americans free to choose not to implicate themselves in it. If we stretch things to create a meaningful category called "pro-choice," then Biden might be a plausible candidate for the label; at least on occasions when he respects your choice or mine not to facilitate deliberate feticide.

The same cannot be said for Barack Obama. For starters, he supports legislation that would repeal the Hyde Amendment, which protects pro-life citizens from having to pay for abortions that are not necessary to save the life of the mother and are not the result of rape or incest. The abortion industry laments that this longstanding federal law, according to the pro-abortion group NARAL, "forces about half the women who would otherwise have abortions to carry unintended pregnancies to term and bear children against their wishes instead." In other words, a whole lot of people who are alive today would have been exterminated in utero were it not for the Hyde Amendment. Obama has promised to reverse the situation so that abortions that the industry complains are not happening (because the federal government is not subsidizing them) would happen. That is why people who profit from abortion love Obama even more than they do his running mate.

But this barely scratches the surface of Obama's extremism. He has promised that "the first thing I'd do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act" (known as FOCA). This proposed legislation would create a federally guaranteed "fundamental right" to abortion through all nine months of pregnancy, including, as Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia has noted in a statement condemning the proposed Act, "a right to abort a fully developed child in the final weeks for undefined 'health' reasons." In essence, FOCA would abolish virtually every existing state and federal limitation on abortion, including parental consent and notification laws for minors, state and federal funding restrictions on abortion, and conscience protections for pro-life citizens working in the health-care industry-protections against being forced to participate in the practice of abortion or else lose their jobs. The pro-abortion National Organization for Women has proclaimed with approval that FOCA would "sweep away hundreds of anti-abortion laws [and] policies."

But it gets even worse. Senator Obama, despite the urging of pro-life members of his own party, has not endorsed or offered support for the Pregnant Women Support Act, the signature bill of Democrats for Life, meant to reduce abortions by providing assistance for women facing crisis pregnancies. In fact, Obama has opposed key provisions of the Act, including providing coverage of unborn children in the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP), and informed consent for women about the effects of abortion and the gestational age of their child. This legislation would not make a single abortion illegal. It simply seeks to make it easier for pregnant women to make the choice not to abort their babies. Here is a concrete test of whether Obama is "pro-choice" rather than pro-abortion. He flunked. Even Senator Edward Kennedy voted to include coverage of unborn children in S-CHIP. But Barack Obama stood resolutely with the most stalwart abortion advocates in opposing it.

It gets worse yet. In an act of breathtaking injustice which the Obama campaign lied about until critics produced documentary proof of what he had done, as an Illinois state senator Obama opposed legislation to protect children who are born alive, either as a result of an abortionist's unsuccessful effort to kill them in the womb, or by the deliberate delivery of the baby prior to viability. This legislation would not have banned any abortions. Indeed, it included a specific provision ensuring that it did not affect abortion laws. (This is one of the points Obama and his campaign lied about until they were caught.) The federal version of the bill passed unanimously in the United States Senate, winning the support of such ardent advocates of legal abortion as John Kerry and Barbara Boxer. But Barack Obama opposed it and worked to defeat it. For him, a child marked for abortion gets no protection-even ordinary medical or comfort care-even if she is born alive and entirely separated from her mother. So Obama has favored protecting what is literally a form of infanticide.

You may be thinking, it can't get worse than that. But it does.

For several years, Americans have been debating the use for biomedical research of embryos produced by in vitro fertilization (originally for reproductive purposes) but now left in a frozen condition in cryopreservation units. President Bush has restricted the use of federal funds for stem-cell research of the type that makes use of these embryos and destroys them in the process. I support the President's restriction, but some legislators with excellent pro-life records, including John McCain, argue that the use of federal money should be permitted where the embryos are going to be discarded or die anyway as the result of the parents' decision. Senator Obama, too, wants to lift the restriction.

But Obama would not stop there. He has co-sponsored a bill-strongly opposed by McCain-that would authorize the large-scale industrial production of human embryos for use in biomedical research in which they would be killed. In fact, the bill Obama co-sponsored would effectively require the killing of human beings in the embryonic stage that were produced by cloning. It would make it a federal crime for a woman to save an embryo by agreeing to have the tiny developing human being implanted in her womb so that he or she could be brought to term. This "clone and kill" bill would, if enacted, bring something to America that has heretofore existed only in China-the equivalent of legally mandated abortion. In an audacious act of deceit, Obama and his co-sponsors misleadingly call this an anti-cloning bill. But it is nothing of the kind. What it bans is not cloning, but allowing the embryonic children produced by cloning to survive.

Can it get still worse? Yes.

Decent people of every persuasion hold out the increasingly realistic hope of resolving the moral issue surrounding embryonic stem-cell research by developing methods to produce the exact equivalent of embryonic stem cells without using (or producing) embryos. But when a bill was introduced in the United States Senate to put a modest amount of federal money into research to develop these methods, Barack Obama was one of the few senators who opposed it. From any rational vantage point, this is unconscionable. Why would someone not wish to find a method of producing the pluripotent cells scientists want that all Americans could enthusiastically endorse? Why create and kill human embryos when there are alternatives that do not require the taking of nascent human lives? It is as if Obama is opposed to stem-cell research unless it involves killing human embryos.

This ultimate manifestation of Obama's extremism brings us back to the puzzle of his pro-life Catholic and Evangelical apologists.

They typically do not deny the facts I have reported. They could not; each one is a matter of public record. But despite Obama's injustices against the most vulnerable human beings, and despite the extraordinary support he receives from the industry that profits from killing the unborn (which should be a good indicator of where he stands), some Obama supporters insist that he is the better candidate from the pro-life point of view.

They say that his economic and social policies would so diminish the demand for abortion that the overall number would actually go down-despite the federal subsidizing of abortion and the elimination of hundreds of pro-life laws. The way to save lots of unborn babies, they say, is to vote for the pro-abortion-oops! "pro-choice"-candidate. They tell us not to worry that Obama opposes the Hyde Amendment, the Mexico City Policy (against funding abortion abroad), parental consent and notification laws, conscience protections, and the funding of alternatives to embryo-destructive research. They ask us to look past his support for Roe v. Wade, the Freedom of Choice Act, partial-birth abortion, and human cloning and embryo-killing. An Obama presidency, they insist, means less killing of the unborn.

The argument, in sum: the constitutional and legal arguments that have raged since Roe vs. Wade are over, and Catholics have lost; there are many other "intrinsic evils" that Catholics are morally bound to oppose, and Republicans tend to ignore those evils; liberalized social-welfare policies will drive down the absolute numbers of abortions and Senator Obama is an unabashed liberal on these matters. Therefore, a vote for Obama is the "real" pro-life vote.

>>>>>>

According to his own Web site, Obama supports the federal Freedom of Choice Act [FOCA], which would eliminate all state and federal regulation of abortion (such as informed consent and parental notification in the case of minors seeking an abortion); these regulations have demonstrably reduced the absolute number of abortions in the jurisdictions in which they are in effect. FOCA would also eliminate, by federal statute, state laws providing "conscience clause" protection for pro-life doctors who decline to provide abortions. Obama (along with the Democratic Party platform) supports federal funding for abortion, opposes the Hyde amendment (which restricts the use of taxpayer monies for abortion) and has pledged to repeal the "Mexico City policy" (initiated by Ronald Reagan and reinstated by George W. Bush, which bans federal foreign-aid funding for organizations that perform and promote abortion as a means of family planning). According to the pro-choice Web site RHRealityCheck.org, Obama also opposes continued federal funding for crisis pregnancy centers.

Then there is the continuing controversy over Obama's role in the Illinois state legislature when that body was considering an "infants born alive" protection act that would extend full legal protection to infants who survive a late-term abortion. ...

>>>>>>

As for the claim that the legal argument is over, and lost, that, too, seems belied by the evidence. Roe vs. Wade remains deeply controversial, in the culture and among legal scholars. Since 1989, the Supreme Court has shown a willingness, on occasion, to uphold laws regulating abortion clinics or banning certain forms of abortion. No Clinton-appointed justice contributed to that trend; it seems very unlikely that Obama nominees would extend the trend. In that respect, a pro-life, pro-Catholic Obama vote is not so much a recognition that the legal argument is over but, de facto, a vote to repeal the legal protections for the unborn that have been laboriously crafted in the 35 years since Roe eliminated the abortion law of all 50 states.

Another line of critique against the pro-life, pro-Catholic Obama activists has been mounted by, among others, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, who holds a doctorate in political philosophy and currently serves as president of the U.S. bishops' conference. In a September letter to the people of the archdiocese of Chicago, the cardinal laid down what he described as a basic principle of justice: in a just society, innocent human life, especially when incapable of self-defense, deserves the protection of the laws. No one who denies that, the cardinal argued, can claim to be advancing the common good. And, as Roe vs. Wade does indeed deny the protection of the laws to the unborn, no one can, with any moral or logical consistence, claim to support both Roe vs. Wade and the common good. It's one or the other.

Similarly, two New York bishops, William Murphy of Rockville Centre and Nicholas DiMarzio of Brooklyn, the present and immediate past chairmen of the U.S. bishops' committee on domestic policy, implicitly challenged the position of Kmiec, Kaveny, Cafardi and others in a Sept. 24 letter to The New York Times. According to a Sept. 18 Times article, the U.S. bishops' statement on the 2008 election, "Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship," had been crafted so as to "explicitly allow Catholics to vote for a candidate who supports abortion rights if they do so for other reasons." That was simply not true, according to DiMarzio and Murphy, who said that "Faithful Citizenship" states that a Catholic can support a pro-abortion candidate "only for truly grave moral reasons, not to advance narrow interests or partisan preferences...." Moreover, the bishops concluded, "this standard of 'grave moral reasons' is a very high standard to meet."

In the October 19 edition of the News Journal, Joe Biden offered his thoughts on faith and values. The Delaware daily also printed a 2007 interview with the Democratic VP candidate on the subject of abortion; it was not previously published.

“In his latest interview with the News Journal, Biden says, ‘I accept my Church’s teaching on when life begins. But we live in a society where a large number of people don’t agree with that position.’ This is true and much the same could be said about racism: The Catholic Church calls racism ‘intrinsically evil’ and supports laws that criminalize it. Biden agrees with this Church teaching and has no problem imposing his view on ‘a large number of people [who] don’t agree with that position.’ But when it comes to abortion, which the Church also labels ‘intrinsically evil,’ Biden demurs. To explain this glaring inconsistency, consider what Biden said in his earlier interview with the newspaper.

“Biden declared that ‘my church has wrestled with this [abortion] for 2,000 years.’ Wrong—the wrestling match he envisions is pure fantasy. The Catholic Catechism clearly states that ‘Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and is unchangeable.’

“Biden also said that ‘throughout the church’s history, we’ve argued whether or not it [abortion] is wrong in every circumstance and the degree of wrong.’ Wrong—as the Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops recently said, ‘modern science has not changed the Church’s constant teaching against abortion, but has underscored how important and reasonable it is….’

“Biden dug himself in deeper when he opined that ‘One of my avocations is theology,’ boasting that ‘I’m a John XXIII guy, I’m not a Pope John Paul guy.’ Well, someone should tell ‘Joe the Theologian’ that John XXIII was every bit as anti-abortion as that ‘other guy,’ JPII.”

October 20, 2008

Catholic League president Bill Donohue exposes the nexus between George Soros and two left-wing Catholic groups, Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good and Catholics United:

“In 2003, after left-wing mogul George Soros blamed Jews for anti-Semitism, the ADL branded his comments ‘obscene.’ Two years later, I accused him of anti-Catholicism when his group, MoveOn.org, posted a picture of a smiling Pope Benedict XVI holding a gavel outside the U.S. Supreme Court, along with the following inscription: ‘God Already Has a Job…He does not need one on the Supreme Court.’

“Why is this relevant? Because this same bigot is connected to two apologists for abortion rights, Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good and Catholics United. In 2006, Soros’ Open Society Institute gave Catholics in Alliance $100,000 (double the amount he gave in 2005), and in the same year Catholics in Alliance listed Catholics United on its 990 as an organization with which it has a formal relationship. John Podesta, who runs the Soros-funded organization, Center for American Progress, admits that he works closely with Catholics in Alliance and Catholics United. The Center for American Progress is also the sponsor of Faith and Public Life.

“Why would any Catholic organization take money from a man like George Soros? Because legitimate sources of revenue aren’t available? And why would Soros have any interest in funding Catholic groups? He doesn’t give the Catholic League any money, and if he offered, I would refuse it.

“The reason Soros funds the Catholic Left is the same reason he lavishly funds Catholics for Choice, the pro-abortion group that has twice been condemned as a fraud by Catholic bishops: they all service his agenda, namely, to make support for abortion rights a respectable Catholic position. On October 17, Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput accused Catholics in Alliance and Catholics United as doing a ‘disservice’ to the Catholic Church. He’s right. And now we know what really makes them tick.”

October 19, 2008

The Obama campaign has gotten a lot of mileage out of former Reagan appointee and pro-lifer(?) Law Professor Douglas Kmiec's public support and campaigning for Obama. And he recently published a book, Can a Catholic Support Him? Asking the Big Question about Barack Obama.

In this book, Kmiec quotes from Archbishop Chaput's book, Render Unto Caesar, written months before Obama or McCain were nominated.

On October 17th, Chaput, the Bishop of Denver, spoke at a dinner for ENDOW (Educating on the Nature and Dignity of Women), commenting on Kmiec, and other pro-life supporters of Obama.

If you hit the link you will go to an abridged version of his talk, and we have excerpts below.

...We need to remember that tolerance is not a Christian virtue, and it's never an end in itself. In fact, tolerating grave evil within a society is itself a form of evil. Likewise, democratic pluralism does not mean that Catholics should be quiet in public about serious moral issues because of some misguided sense of good manners. A healthy democracy requires vigorous moral debate to survive. Real pluralism demands that people of strong beliefs will advance their convictions in the public square - peacefully, legally and respectfully, but energetically and without embarrassment.

>>>>>>

...unlike Prof. Douglas Kmiec's recent book, Can a Catholic Support Him? Asking the Big Question about Barack Obama, which argues a Catholic case for Senator Obama - I wrote Render Unto Caesar with no interest in supporting or attacking any candidate or any political party.

The goal of Render Unto Caesar was simply to describe what an authentic Catholic approach to political life looks like, and then to encourage Americans Catholics to live it.

Prof. Kmiec has a strong record of service to the Church and the nation in his past. He served in the Reagan administration, and he supported Mitt Romney's campaign for president before switching in a very public way to Barack Obama earlier this year. In his own book he quotes from Render UntoCaesar at some length. In fact, he suggests that his reasoning and mine are ''not far distant on the moral inquiry necessary in the election of 2008.'' Unfortunately, he either misunderstands or misuses my words, and he couldn't be more mistaken.

I believe that Senator Obama, whatever his other talents, is the most committed ''abortion-rights'' presidential candidate of either major party since the Roe v. Wade abortion decision in 1973. Despite what Prof. Kmiec suggests, the party platform Senator Obama runs on this year is not only aggressively ''pro-choice;'' it has also removed any suggestion that killing an unborn child might be a regrettable thing. On the question of homicide against the unborn child - and let's remember that the great Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer explicitly called abortion ''murder'' - the Democratic platform that emerged from Denver in August 2008 is clearly anti-life.

Prof. Kmiec argues that there are defensible motives to support Senator Obama. Speaking for myself, I do not know any proportionate reason that could outweigh more than 40 million unborn children killed by abortion and the many millions of women deeply wounded by the loss and regret abortion creates.

To suggest - as some Catholics do - that Senator Obama is this year's ''real'' prolife candidate requires a peculiar kind of self-hypnosis, or moral confusion, or worse. To portray the 2008 Democratic Party presidential ticket as the preferred ''prolife'' option is to subvert what the word ''prolife'' means. Anyone interested in Senator Obama's record on abortion and related issues should simply read Prof. Robert P. George's Public Discourse essay from earlier this week, ''Obama's Abortion Extremism,'' and his follow-up article, ''Obama and Infanticide.'' They say everything that needs to be said.

Of course, these are simply my personal views as an author and private citizen. But I'm grateful to Prof. Kmiec for quoting me in his book and giving me the reason to speak so clearly about our differences. I think his activism for Senator Obama, and the work of Democratic-friendly groups like Catholics United and Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, have done a disservice to the Church, confused the natural priorities of Catholic social teaching, undermined the progress prolifers have made, and provided an excuse for some Catholics to abandon the abortion issue instead of fighting within their parties and at the ballot box to protect the unborn.

And here's the irony. None of the Catholic arguments advanced in favor of Senator Obama are new. They've been around, in one form or another, for more than 25 years. All of them seek to ''get beyond'' abortion, or economically reduce the number of abortions, or create a better society where abortion won't be necessary. All of them involve a misuse of the seamless garment imagery in Catholic social teaching. And all of them, in practice, seek to contextualize, demote and then counterbalance the evil of abortion with other important but less foundational social issues.

This is a great sadness. As Chicago's Cardinal Francis George said recently, too many Americans have ''no recognition of the fact that children continue to be killed [by abortion], and we live therefore, in a country drenched in blood. This can't be something you start playing off pragmatically against other issues.''

Meanwhile, the basic human rights violation at the heart of abortion - the intentional destruction of an innocent, developing human life - is wordsmithed away as a terrible crime that just can't be fixed by the law. I don't believe that. I think that argument is a fraud. And I don't think any serious believer can accept that argument without damaging his or her credibility. We still have more than a million abortions a year, and we can't blame them all on Republican social policies. After all, it was a Democratic president, not a Republican, who vetoed the partial birth abortion ban - twice.

The truth is that for some Catholics, the abortion issue has never been a comfortable cause. It's embarrassing. It's not the kind of social justice they like to talk about. It interferes with their natural political alliances. And because the homicides involved in abortion are ''little murders'' - the kind of private, legally protected murders that kill conveniently unseen lives - it's easy to look the other way.

The one genuinely new quality to Catholic arguments for Senator Obama is their packaging. Just as the abortion lobby fostered ''Catholics for a Free Choice'' to challenge Catholic teaching on abortion more than two decades ago, so supporters of Senator Obama have done something similar in seeking to neutralize the witness of bishops and the pro-life movement by offering a ''Catholic'' alternative to the Church's priority on sanctity of life issues. I think it's an intelligent strategy. I also think it's wrong and often dishonest.

The analysis confirmed previous reports that the abortion rate fell to the lowest level since 1974, dropping 33 percent from a peak of 29 abortions per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44 in 1980 to 20 per 1,000 in 2004.

During that period, the proportion of abortions obtained by women younger than 20 dropped steadily, falling from 33 percent in 1974 to 17 percent in 2004. For those younger than 18, it fell from 15 percent of all abortions in 1974 to 6 percent in 2004. At the same time, the proportion of abortions obtained by women in their 20s increased from 50 percent to 57 percent, and the share done for women age 30 and older rose from 18 percent to 27 percent.

October 16, 2008

Verastegui has made a video in Spanish, to warn the Hispanic community about abortion and the pro-abortion position of Barack Obama.

Here are two videos. The first is an excerpted video of Verastegui's full video, with English sub-titles, and without the pictures of aborted babies. It is just over four minutes long. Then below it, we have the full video, in Spanish, with the graphic pictures. The video sections of the killed babies are from the video "The Hard Truth", produced a number of years ago. It also includes video of Operation Rescue civil disobedience events. You tube had blocked the second video, but then put it back up with a warning that it was "graphic" and asking you to sign in and verify that you are 18 years of age.

October 14, 2008

Here is the information we've been sent - please call, fax, mail, email a respectful message/letter pointing out the contradiction between Catholic Faith and Ignatian spirituality, and giving an ethics award to a leader of the Culture of Death.

Fordham President Fr. Joseph McShane SJ, doesn't seem to have a listed email address, but his phone is (718) 817-3000 and his FAX is (718) 817-3005. Here's his secretary's info:CONTACT INFORMATION

Breyer is scheduled to receive the Fordham—Stein Prize in Ethics, bestowed by Fordham Law School, at a dinner Oct. 29 at the university's Lincoln Center campus.

In an open letter and petition to Fordham's president, Father Joseph M. McShane, S.J., officers of the campus respect life club and its Republican club asked that the award not be granted because of Breyer's "repeated and influential work in favor of legalized abortion" in his public life.

The letter states that the jurist's work has placed him "in a position of complacency with grave moral evil, and leaves him in a position of irreconcilable conflict with the fundamental teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, and by extension, those of the university, in its role as one of this nation's leading Catholic universities."

"We are actively opposing this," said Sheldon D. Momaney, a junior who is president of the Respect for Life Club.

"We want the faith on campus, and we're not OK with having a Catholic university give this award," he told CNY. He added that the students' protests will be "respectful."

A spokesman for Fordham, asked by CNY for a comment, said the Jesuit—run university "is not going to be speaking on this issue."

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Also cited in the petition was Cardinal Egan's Aug. 26 statement that anyone who "dares to defend" the killing of another human being in an abortion "should not be providing leadership in a civilized democracy worthy of the name," and the principles of Pope John Paul II's apostolic constitution on Catholic universities, "Ex Corde Ecclesiae," which states that Catholic universities must be faithful to the teachings of the Church.

Holy Name of Mary Parish in Croton-on-Hudson is doing a mixed buffet and free showing of the movie Bella. This PG movie is about real love, real relationships, and the surprises life holds in store when all seems lost.

A movie with a deep pro-life message that the Respect Life Society is sponsoring with the HNM Hispanic Ministry during October's Respect Life Month.

The showing is October 17th at 5 o'clock in the Holy Name of Mary Parish Center on Grand Street. E-mail us for directions at judya4u@aol.com, or call Judy at 914-329-5163.

October 08, 2008

Those who have been excommunicated or interdicted after the imposition or the declaration of a penalty as well as others who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to communion.

The mission of this web site is to hasten the day when all Catholic bishops, priests and faithful will boldly proclaim and vigorously defend the gospel of life.

We are called to be diligent and faithful. We are also called to be respectful and prayerful. It is our hope that this section will help you respond — charitably and prudently — to troubling situations in your parish, your diocese, your national bishops' conference. But always keep in mind Christ's promise to Peter — the Church will stand.

The site has educational resources, and also lists the many Catholic politicians who refuse to uphold the Church teaching on the sanctity of prenatal life, along with their votes on prolife issues such as the partial birth abortion ban, the morning after pill, etc.

It's a long and sad list and reinforces the realization that legal abortion on demand exists because of the terpitude of the American Catholic Church.

(LifeSiteNews.com) - Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City, Mo. has issued a pastoral warning to his flock that the proposed Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) would "immediately make null and void every current restriction on abortion in all jurisdictions." The federal legislation, introduced in April 2007, would, the bishop warns, "unleash - on a national level - a complete and unrestricted access to abortion."

A leading US pro-abortion organisation agrees with the bishop's assessment. The National Organization of Women (NOW) said that FOCA "would sweep away hundreds of anti-abortion laws, policies." Planned Parenthood also agreed, saying, "The legislation (FOCA) would invalidate existing and future laws that interfere with or discriminate against the exercise of the [abortion] rights protected. It also would provide an individual aggrieved by a violation of the act a private right of civil action in order to obtain appropriate relief."

When Senator Barack Obama addressed a Planned Parenthood event on July 17, 2007, he said, "The first thing I will do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act."

Bishop Finn, while not mentioning Senator Obama's name, wrote, "When a candidate ... promises to promote - or to 'sign immediately upon taking office' - the Freedom of Choice Act, Catholics and all people of good will have cause to question the sincerity of the candidate's determination to reduce abortions." Bishop Finn noted that the abortion rate has been falling amongst teens, suggesting that this is due to "these already existing limits" that "have caused a decrease of more than 100,000 abortions each year."

FOCA would eliminate conscience protection for physicians, he said, and would require states to fund abortions.

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FOCA at a stroke would reverse many of the gains won by the pro-life movement in the US in the last twenty years. It would overturn state abortion reporting requirements in all 50 states; forty-four states' laws concerning parental involvement; forty states' laws on restricting later-term abortions; forty-six states' conscience protection laws for individual health care providers; twenty-seven states' conscience protection laws for institutions; thirty-eight states' bans on partial-birth abortions; thirty-three states' laws on requiring counselling before an abortion; and sixteen states' laws concerning ultrasounds before an abortion.

Bishop Finn said that while it may be permissible to vote for a candidate "in spite of" his support for abortion, "it seems we are morally obliged to establish a proportionate reason sufficient to justify the destruction of 45 million human persons through abortion."

If a candidate, however, "pledges - through an instrument such as FOCA - to eliminate all existing limitations against abortion, it is that much more doubtful whether voting for him or her can ever be morally justified under any circumstance," Bishop Finn concluded.

Officials at the Franciscan University of Steubenville are responding to criticism over Catholic law professor Nicholas Cafardi endorsing pro-abortion candidate Barack Obama. The endorsement has caused waves within pro-life Catholic circles, party because Cafardi is a Steubenville trustee.

Cafardi, the former Duquesne University School of Law dean, wrote an editorial appearing in the National Catholic Reporter saying he believes abortion is an "unspeakable evil" yet he supports Obama, who has pledged to keep abortion legal another 35 years.

Cafardi bases his endorsement on two points -- claiming the pro-life movement has "permanently" lost the abortion battle and saying voting for Obama can be justified on other political issues.

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Steubenville officials responded to the piece with a statement about Cafardi.

"Cafardi’s defense of Barack Obama as a moral choice for Catholics reflects his views as a private citizen, and in no way reflects the views of Franciscan University of Steubenville," FUS officials said.

"Carfardi has acknowledged that in this he does not speak for the Board of Trustees, or for any representative body of the University such as administration, faculty, students, alumni, or parents," the statement read.

Franciscan University directly challenged Cafardi’s contention that the abortion battle is lost.

"Franciscan University stands with the Catholic Church in its opposition to abortion as an intrinsic evil and violation of the sanctity of human life," the school said. "The University does not believe the abortion battle is lost, but that the tide is decidedly turning in favor of life."

The college also said it agreed that, when it comes to public policy, as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has stated, “Life issues are paramount among all issues because the right to life is fundamental. All other rights are based on it.”

As a result, FUS said it encourages students to view pro-life issues "as foundational, and as issues that do not lend themselves to the prudential judgment of the voter."

The shockwaves that FOCA would cause are immense and wide-ranging, but recent research shows one effect in particular. Certain state laws that are doomed under FOCA actually prevent a statistically significant number of abortions. These laws include parental involvement requirements, informed consent laws, and restrictions on government funding of abortions.

Specifically, if FOCA is passed it will increase abortions by 125,000 more per year in the United States. Since 2004, Dr. Michael New has published studies with the Heritage Foundation showing that a large reduction in abortions can be attributed to these three kinds of laws.

Even considering other reduction factors such as change in public opinion, Dr. New’s regression analysis shows that parental involvement laws in a state lead to 0.54 fewer abortions per 1000 women of childbearing age, informed consent laws lead to 0.92 fewer, and state restrictions on Medicaid funding lead to 2.08 fewer.

Both pro-life and pro-abortion organizations tell us which states have these laws in place: 36 states have parental involvement laws, 26 states have informed consent laws, and 34 states have funding restrictions.

October 03, 2008

"Politics and the Pro-lifer" was not just the distinguished guest speaker Yonkers Mayor Phil Amicone's inspirational address to the gathered crowd; it is the defining description of the life and death struggle at the heart of the relationship between the world of politics and the pro-life men and women present at this year's Westchester and Putnam Right to Life PAC fundraiser. Mayor Amicone honors Anthony "Tony" Felicissimo of Advocates for Life with a special presentation below.

Katonah's Westchester and Putnam Center for
Life director Alan Mehldau hoists a framed photograph of Mayor Amicone's history-making dedication of Respect Life Week in Yonkers earlier this year.

Before the awards, familiar pro-life leaders, politicians, and their guests mingled at the cocktail hour. No ice-breaking needed for this friendly crowd of activists.

Liz Costanzo, grand doyenne of the Right to Life Party, is all smiles with the dynamic Rev. Michael Morrow of St. Eugene's Parish.

Less than two weeks after The Cardinal Newman Society (CNS) broke the story that pro-abortion Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer is the intended recipient of the Fordham-Stein Ethics Prize, Fordham University students are working feverishly to collect signatures petitioning President Rev. Joseph McShane, S.J. to rescind the honor. The Fordham Respect for Life club penned an open letter to Father McShane, and is now asking the general public to join them in their petition.

At the request of Respect for Life, an electronic petition has been added to The Cardinal Newman Society website. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to add their support. All names and emails submitted will be presented to Fordham President, Rev. Joseph McShane, S.J. by Respect for Life.

A month from today, on October 29, The Fordham-Stein Ethics Prize is scheduled to be bestowed upon Justice Breyer at a dinner in New York City.

In review: Justice Breyer infamously wrote the majority opinion in 2000 for Stenberg v. Carhart, which struck down state laws banning the barbaric practice of partial-birth abortion. The Cardinal Newman Society wrote to Father McShane five weeks ago informing him of Justice Breyer’s record. No response was given. Since then many have expressed outrage at Fordham’s silence.

Student
leaders from Fordham’s Respect for Life club attempted several times to
meet with University administrators, but their requests were met with
more silence. The students needed official permission to set up tables
to collect signatures for their petition. Without this green light
their options have been limited.

Fordham
Respect for Life and CNS are therefore appealing to everyone who shares
the conviction that Fordham University must rescind the offer of the
Fordham-Stein Ethics Prize to Justice Breyer to add their names to the electronic petition.

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The Fordham University Respect life
group deserves enormous credit for taking on the administration. Here
are some of them in March at the protest in Yonkers against the New
York State RHAPP Bill.

October 01, 2008

Edward Cardinal Egan and the Catholic Bishops of New York issued the appeal in statement entitled Our Cherished Right, Our Solemn Duty.

The bishops warn against voting solely out of party loyalty or self interest and say voters should be guided by the pro-life teachings of the Catholic Church.

While noting that there are many issues of great importance facing the country, the protection of human life rises above all other issues, the bishops said.

"We Catholics are called to look at politics as we are called to look at everything – through the lens of our faith," they wrote.

"It is the rare candidate who will agree with the Church on every issue. But as the U.S. Bishops’ recent document Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship makes clear, not every issue is of equal moral gravity," they explain.

"The inalienable right to life of every innocent human person outweighs other concerns where Catholics may use prudential judgment, such as how best to meet the needs of the poor or to increase access to health care for all," they add.

“The right to life is the right through which all others flow,” they wrote. “To the extent candidates reject this fundamental right by supporting an objective evil, such as legal abortion, euthanasia or embryonic stem cell research, Catholic should consider them less acceptable for public office.”